Business Toolkit – Page 48 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Detail Oriented Versus Control Freak – Where’s the Line?

October 6, 2008/8 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Twice in the last week I’ve heard about “idiot bosses” (all right, maybe more than twice, and if you don’t believe me check out the polls at the bottom of the page). Being the inquisitive guy I am, I probed for the root cause of such comments. Rather than simply asking what the cause is, I decided to probe the symptoms first.

“Tell me more about this idiot boss.”

“I’m so fed up with him. He’s always on top of everything I do. He nags at me. Sometimes he even goes behind my back on things that I’m responsible for. It seems like everything I do is constantly under a microscope.”

“Like how?” (I know – I sounded like a Valley Girl on that one).

“The other night I was getting ready to leave and he actually called my cell as I walked out of the building because he wanted to discuss something that happened earlier that morning. He sometimes goes to members of my team, asks them what they’re doing, and then reprioritizes their work or even gives them new projects I’m not aware of. On top of that, he doesn’t even tell me he’s done this and I find out after the fact that my team’s priorities have changed.”

“Wow. That’s pretty bad. Lemme tell you what I think you can do here.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

Project Management Without the Paperwork

September 24, 2008/6 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

Often project management is criticized for adding overhead to a project (and when executed poorly, it does). Words like documentation and methodology make leadership think of productivity loss and non-value added activity. Project management is rooted in some very good principles, but much like anything else, in its extreme forms it is dangerous.

The positive principles I am speaking of are planning out your activities, providing accurate budgets, reaching your goal when you said you would, steering around roadblocks before you hit them, etc. Because of this, project management is growing in popularity every day. So why are some people opposed to it? I am going to explain why leadership doesn’t like project management and show you how to NOT live up to the stereotype.

Leadership doesn’t like project management because time spent planning or working on documentation is time not spent working on deliverables. They have trouble connecting the idea that hours of planning and pages of documentation help you achieve the goal faster and cheaper. They simply want the project done faster, cheaper, and leaner. The irony is that project management can do all of this if executed properly.

Why “Making the Numbers” is Stupid (Part 3 of 3: Stupidity Prevention Medicine)

July 21, 2008/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

In our last two sessions together, we explored how “expectations” can create a poisonous environment whereby the numbers dominate rational business decision making. We also covered some of my favorite self-defeating behaviors that can result from such a maniacal focus on the numbers. Unlike a typical critic though, I won’t simply point to a problem and walk away. Instead, I’m obligated to give you some thoughts and tools to help you solve these problems (after all, that’s what we at thoughtLEADERS are all about – real world, practical tools that can make your organization perform better).

Business is a marathon. A long painful one but there’s only one goal – making it through that gruelingly long journey. Unfortunately in business, there’s no finish line. I won’t deny it’s easy to lose sight of the goal when the numerical mileposts on the way there take on a life of their own. As an aside, the reason those numbers take on such a huge presence in our lives is because they’re typically directly linked to OUR numbers (read: our paychecks and our bonuses). That close connection to something so incredibly personal makes it difficult to see “the numbers” as simply mile-markers on the way to a strategic objective (which in turn leads to the dumb behaviors outlined in the last post). That said, there are a few ways to mitigate these kinds of problems.

Why “Making the Numbers” is Stupid (Part 2 of 3: Ten Stoopid Short-Term Behaviors)

July 17, 2008/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

In my last post, I covered the moronic tyranny of expectations. Hopefully it’s apparent how external pressures can get an organization to focus on the wrong thing – the mile marker rather than the destination.

Once your organization falls into that trap, you’re sure to see some of the following behaviors (or ones of similar colossal stupidity). These behaviors eventually become part of the culture because by performing them, the organization is simply mortgaging its future to bring forward good performance into the current period. Doing so helps meet near term expectations but then creates an even higher hurdle to meet expectations in the next period. It goes on and on until the organization crashes in a blistering ball of flames and worthless stock options (can you say Worldcom? Enron?).

So without further ado, I give you some of my all-time favorite moronic business behaviors guaranteed to help you make your numbers today at the expense of your long term strategy tomorrow:

Why “Making the Numbers” is Stupid (Part 1 of 3: The Tyranny of “Expectations”)

July 14, 2008/2 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Let me be clear: I’m going to be pretty blasphemous in this post. Then again, I hope you expect nothing less from me. “Making the numbers” is stupid. It’s a crutch for being simple-minded and weak-spined. At worst, it’s a stick to beat people with which invariably leads to suboptimal, nay, outright stupid behavior. It’s one of the surest ways to guarantee you mortgage the future of your business if you allow the deleterious effects of a “make the numbers” mindset take hold.

I acknowledge many of you who have responsibility for P&Ls or cost centers are about to have aneurysms right now. Chillax. I’ll ‘splain Lucy…

This is too large a topic to adequately cover in a single sitting so I’m breaking it into three digestible posts. And yes, you’ll have to wait for the second and third installments…

First we’ll have to look at how we get into this situation where numbers dominate rational business decision making. Second, we’ll explore the perverse behaviors that result. Finally, I’ll offer a few thoughts on how to get off the psychotic hamster wheel of numerical doom.

Hey Mr. Smartypants!

June 18, 2008/4 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

You’re not as smart as you think you are.

Seriously. I mean, you’re bright and literate but you’re really not as smart as you think. Neither am I. See, the thing is, as soon as you start walking around with your smartypants on, you expose yourself to the risk of career irrelevance. The world changes. Every day. The risk of thinking you’re smart is that you think you don’t need to learn anything new or change. Once that happens, you’ve doomed yourself to irrelevance just like the amazing car phone (remember those?).

Smart people know a lot. Heck – some of them think they know everything (sort of like Lumbergh). They won’t tell you that because it’s boorish but trust me, they think it even at some subliminal level. You know it’s true. Because of that, they’re loathe to learn something new because by definition it means they don’t know everything. It’s easier to know it all by refusing to admit there’s anything new to know.

By now, Mr. or Mrs. Smartypants has stopped reading because they know the lesson or suggestion is coming and well, gee… they already know it all so there’s no point in them continuing with the rest of the post. If you’re not a smartypants, keep reading.